Mary Margaret's Letter

Mary Margaret was what islanders called a sturdy woman, big boned and husky with muscular forearms and an overall build more suited to driving rails than delicacy.  She could out drink, out curse, and out fight almost any man in the village - and often did on summer Saturday nights - when the week's work was over and done. She kept a store of homebrew in the root cellar just for the occasion.

After her common law husband had tripped and fallen down those very dimly lit steps one chilly winter night and died of a broken neck - he'd been a mean drunk and a sorry son of a bitch by most accounts - Mary Margaret planted him and moved on, raising four sons on hard work, whiskey, and a small government pension.

Hell raisers all, so folks said but never to her face or their's as the boys tended to travel in a loud, defiant pack, ragged and poor and ill tempered, and their mother - who stood just over  six foot in her stocking feet - made impressive figures.

Gawddam, if those boys aren't bigger'n most houses, Uncle Shad remarked to my grandmother.

Come to a bad end, they will, Nana agreed sourly, Jist like they's daddy.

Uncle Shad snapped a kitchen match with one practiced, toughened thumbnail and it burst into flame with a bright, sulphury-y hiss.

There be some still say he didn't fall, he said mildly and exhaled a stream of silvery smoke.

Reckon so, my grandmother nodded, But sayin' and provin' ain't even related.

Don't 'spose, Shad allowed, but gawddam, ain't those boys big as trees.

On the morning the sturdy woman came to our back door, looking like the wrath of God and blotting out the sun with her sheer size, I liked to swallow my gum in fear.  Nana gave me a brisk clap on the back before chasing me off with a Shut yer mouth, child, you'll catch flies low growl.

Got me an errand in Digby, Missus, Mary Margaret muttered, Heard tell you was goin' come Sat'day.  Wondrin' if you'd oblige me.

It was a common enough request as anyone making a trip to the mainland always traveled with a list of places to stop or things to pick up for others in the village - liquor from the province-run liquor store mostly - but also fabrics or small machine parts, veterinary drugs or packages too big for the mail car.  Once Uncle Willie and Uncle Shad had loaded a second hand pump organ for the Baptist church into the back of a pickup truck and worried it all the way back.  And once they'd transported a carefully wrapped grave marker from Jayne's Funeral Home, coaxing John Sullivan to ride in the back and keep watch over it.

Ain't gon' do that a second time, Long John had told Nana with a curiously fragile shudder, Give me the fidgets somethin' fierce to ride sixty miles with a tombstone.

So Nana smiled and nodded and took down her little notebook from its hook by the back door, neatly wrote Mary Margaret's name and looked up expectantly.  The sturdy woman shifted from one foot to the other, big hamhock hands jammed into the pockets of her overalls,  eyes looking everywhere but at my grandmother.  It was an odd stand off and Nana waited patiently.

Prob'ly wants her to pick up a body, my little brother hissed in my ear, surprising me into a muffled shriek and earning us one of Nana's patented, narrow-eyed warning glances.  Mary Margaret didn't seem to notice.

Mary?  Nana asked encouragingly, What is it you need?

Got me a letter, Mary Margaret said finally, producing a folded over and dirt stained envelope from her back pocket, It's private like.  Don't rightly trust the mail.  She handed it over hesitantly and Nana took it.  For a moment it hung there, half in my grandmother's well cared for hands, half in Mary Margaret's overworked ones.
Then, as if it might bite, Mary Margaret let go.

I'm obliged to you, Missus, she said in a softer tone and then the screen door slammed and she was gone.

Burning with curiosity, my brother and I descended on Nana like locusts - we'd seen her eyes widen when she looked at the grimy envelope and read the address - but she'd have none of it.  She waved us off and tucked the envelope into her apron pocket.

Not your business, she said tartly, not your burden.  Go before I decide to take you both to the woodshed for listenin' at keyholes!

This being no idle threat, we went.

By Saturday we'd all but forgotten about Mary Margaret's mysterious letter.  Nana made no mention of it as we all piled into the old Lincoln and nothing out of the ordinary happened until we were on our way home and without a word of explanation, made an unscheduled stop of the headquarters of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.  

I'll be back directly, she said, pulling into a vacant space, Stay put and behave.

But Nana.......we started to protest and she silenced us with a fierce glare.

Curiosity killed the cat, she told us abruptly, slung her purse over her elbow and marched toward the official looking and slightly intimidating building.

Somebody's in trouble now!  my little brother whooped and gave me a sharp dig in the ribs.  I shoved back and called him a nasty name and my mother turned in her seat and clapped her palms together sharply.

That's enough! my mother snapped angrily and clapped her palms together, They have special cells for children who don't do as they're told!

I was old enough to recognize that this was a tactic but my little brother cowered at once, curling himself into a ball against the passenger door, white faced and looking close to tears.  Feeling guilty, I shook my head at him and patted his shoulder, mouthing No, they don't.  He shivered and uncertainly reached for my hand. The ride home was quieter than usual and although nothing was said, I sensed trouble brewing between my mother and grandmother and was sure it had to do with Mary Margaret and the letter but it would be another few days before the trouble bubbled to the surface and spilled over like an unwatched pot.

Ruthie and I were in the playhouse, serving imaginary tea to the dogs and a collection of imaginary guests, when the official RCMP sedan came cruising slowly down the gravel driveway.  We watched breathlessly as two officers in their familiar traditional uniforms - red shirts with brass buttons, dark trousers, shiny boots and stiff-brimmed hats - knocked politely at the back door and were ushered inside.  Half an hour or so later, we watched them leave, heading further down The Point, and in our best stealth mode, we crept through the tall grass and across Aunt Lizzie's back pasture to a vantage point just beyond the barn.  The sedan pulled slowly into Mary Margaret's rutted driveway, raising a small cloud of dust and sending a flock of scavenging chickens scattering in all directions.  Their indignant protesting was loud but not loud enough to drown out Ruthie's sudden sneeze and one of the mounties casually looked our way before calling out a dry humored Gesundheit! 
A well trained and polite child, she immediately called back Thank you! and then covered her mouth with one hand, her eyes wide with shock at what she'd done.   

Oh, hellfire and cracker crap! she gasped, They know we're here!

Run! I yelled, barely conscious of the mounties laughing in the background.  We took hands and ran for all we were worth, plowing through the high grass blindly and fully expecting to be chased and apprehended.

I can't be arrested!  Ruthie cried with big tears running down her pale cheeks, I'll get a whippin' if I ain't home for supper! 

For whatever childish reason, this made perfect sense to me.

Just run! I hollered back, Make for the woodshed!

We hid out with the kindling, the spiders and the woodbugs the rest of the afternoon and when the factory whistle blew at four, crept out and made our way through the back pasture to Uncle Shad's, across Uncle Willie's strawberry field to the Old Road and finally to the square.  Two little girls in tattered and dusty overalls with their faces smeared from dirt and wood shavings might've raised questions if the entire village hadn't been so scandalized by the news that the mounties had discovered no trace of Mary Margaret or her four big-as-trees sons, that the house was cold, dirty, and empty. Not a solitary soul would admit to having seen them since Saturday.

There's only one way off this island, the mounties had allegedly told Cap, They had to cross, wouldn't you say.

Ay-uh, the ferry boat captain had nodded, Be hard to miss'em, I reckon.  Them boys be as big as gawddam brick sh....big as trees, they be.  But they ain't crossed on my boat and that's a God given fact.

Maybe they swam, one of the mounties suggested with a slight sneer.

Mebbe they did, Cap allowed impassively, Reckon you gon' drag the passage?  Current's mighty strong this time of year, even for a sturdy woman like Mary Margaret.

The mounties left empty handed and the scandal, unfed, thirty years in the past and nowhere to go, died down by Labor Day.  The rumor that Mary Margaret's letter had been a confession to the killing of a mean drunk and a sorry son of a bitch stayed a rumor.  No one mentioned the second rumor, that four young boys who hadn't always been the size of trees might've had enough of their daddy's abuse and done a little housecleaning on their own.  

The truth, J. K. Rowling wrote, is a beautiful and terrible thing.  It should be treated with caution.




  

Uncertainty Ahead

The streets are glistening after a three day rain.  Both the front and back yards are slick with dead leaves and the remains of broken branches.  The weather is conflicted, not able to make up its mind whether to be muggy and unpleasantly still or sullen and cold and November-ish.  At times I know exactly how it feels - we are soul mates one moment and the bitterest of enemies the next - change, as some famous  Greek philosopher wrote, is the only constant.  All we ever really know is that there is uncertainty ahead.

Don't weary, my daddy used to tell me but he did and I do, sometimes about silly, foolish things and always about things I can't control.  It's an inherited trait I really could do without but if I have nothing to worry over,
I can invent something in a flash.

According to the evening news, my friend Daniel is currently lying in charity hospital with life threatening injuries, namely a gunshot wound to the chest.  After a marathon night of music and alcohol, he staggered home - to the wrong house - and when his key didn't work, he tried to break in and was summarily shot multiple times by the homeowner.  No charges have been filed.

Lucky it was a handgun and not a sawed off, Daniel writes on social media.  I suppose I could be glad that he hasn't lost his dry wit but truthfully the humor escapes me.  His 30th birthday is still ahead of him, he has a wife, a three year old child and a three week old baby.  He's alive by no small miracle and the medical bills will be astronomical.  I'm glad he can still smile but what of the nightmare his family and friends have been put through, what of the homeowner who pulled the trigger?  

He freely admits to being an alcoholic, of having black outs from time to time.  He apologizes publicly but makes no mention of getting help.  It hurts my heart to see his friends compliment him on what will be his new and impressive street cred.  The social media debate that breaks out after the shooting devolves quickly and battle lines are clearly drawn.  His defenders post impassioned pleas for understanding and forgiveness, his detractors are ready and willing to lock him up and throw away the key.  He's an irresponsible drunk or a troubled young man who made a tragic mistake.  He got what he deserved or he's a victim.  I read over a hundred comments and there's not a mention - not a single, solitary mention - of the fact that alcoholism is a disease.  Plenty of sympathy, boatloads of support.  Lots of cruelty and truly hateful rhetoric.  Gun nuts bragging that he'd if it had been their house, he'd would be dead.  Self righteous condemnations of his poor choices.  Reminders that everyone makes mistakes and too many get well wishes to count.  Prayers for his family, prayers for the shooter.

It stuns and saddens me that amid all this very public airing of very private dirty laundry, not one line is written about the truth.

God protects fools and drunks, my daddy used to tell me.

He never said who protects us from each other.

  

Darktown

Here in Darktown, where even the shadows have shadows, you drink your coffee black and never get up before suppertime.  The streets are littered with unfiltered cigarette butts and dented plastic cups.  The gutters reek of stale beer and blood.  The bars never close and the horses go hungry in their shabby stalls while ragged women call from second story windows and down-and-out men lounge beneath the streetlights selling magic white powder.  Children can't read but they can shoot and handle a blade with deadly sleight of hand.  The river keeps its secrets, the smoky landscape looks like a weathered, faded postcard - mud stained with torn edges - the church bells never ring.  Here in Darktown, even the moonlight keeps away and you can get killed over a chicken bone or a fifty cent piece.  The sky is never anything but sick yellow and when the fog rolls in around midnight, even the stray cats run for cover.  There are no innocents in Darktown.  It's not on any map, not on the way to anywhere.  You don't get here by accident and you don't hardly leave except in a pine box. 

During the day here in Darktown, the wind blows hot and dry and gritty as a sandstorm.  It collects litter and debris - cast off candy wrappers and discarded newspapers mostly but empty aluminum beer cans as well, sometimes even a blood stained old shoe - and shuttles them roughly over the broken sidewalks and into the gutters at the low end of town.  The streets are swept as clean as they ever get here but no one notices.  It's an unnaturally quiet place during the day - desolate and deserted - no foot traffic or passersby, no horse carts. You might hear the occasional loose shutter slam against a dilapidated building or the creak of a swinging door forced open by the wind but there are no people sounds.  It's like an old, abandoned mining town, full of ghosts and rag-tag homeless dogs.  The stench of the river is always in the air, brackish and smelling vaguely of food gone bad.  The dogs sniff at it warily but then slink away, too thin and too tired to pursue it.

The river is not a pretty place.  It's banks are slimy and overgrown with weeds and dead trees.  The currents flow quickly and are thickened with trash - sometimes a body part or two rises from the black bottom and is swept downstream - if it's not snagged and impaled on a fallen branch for all to see.  A hand once washed up on the slippery shore, so it's said, but the river hurriedly reclaimed it.  The black water has never encouraged visitors or curiosity, it claims its victims silently and never brags, then flows to the rendering plant and offers them up.  They disappear in a cloud of vile smoke and hot ash falls like confetti.

A safe distance away, ordinary people live with ordinary troubles and try not to think too much about the nearness of Darktown.  They isolate themselves with their their workaday worlds, their Sunday cook outs, their sweet, equitable upbringing.  They comfort themselves with their sameness and shared ambitions.  They raise their children to be hard working, well behaved, civil tongued and it's a rare thing for a child to be threatened with Darktown - but it happens - and it puts the fear of God into these little ones.  It's a mean-spirited and desperate parent who resorts to this tactic and it's almost always immediately retracted but the children remember.  Words have power and they leave scars and for the one or two who will inevitably find their way to the terrible wasteland, not knowing why is a comfort.  They leave the ordinary world and crawl into the darkness with something like relief, seeking the sweet nothingness of Darktown and willingly getting lost in it.

And here in Darktown, they give up.  Sometimes they a leave a note, more often they just take too many pills or hang themselves from a tree on the bank of the filthy river.  Only the citizens of Darktown, the ones who actually live there, ever really understand the despair, the pain, or the power of depression. 

For me, as an adult who can still sometimes look out her second story bedroom window and see an imaginary place on the outskirts of ordinary, Darktown is imagery.  For those who live there, it's all too real.





  

Urban Blight

I make the drive to the country in just over an hour, cursing the interstate at every mile and being grateful to finally make my way onto a backroads highway.  The road bends and sways like a tapestry, the trees are in full fall color and the sun is warm.  It's a pretty and peaceful drive past horse farms and elegant homes on several acres, cattle grazing idly in open pastures and man made ponds complete with ducks skimming lightly on the water's surface.  Despite its lack of conveniences, there are still moments I miss the country quiet and the rural isolation and long for a life free from city noise and city-fied people.

It all changes at the city limits when the landscape turns urban.  Block after block of ruined properties, empty and neglected houses, shabby businesses and trashed lots replace the pretty countryside.  What a sad, burned out, abandoned little town, I think.  If it was ever here at all, quaint has come and gone.

On the courthouse lawn, two makeshift stages have been built and a half dozen rows of folding chairs set up to one side of the confederate soldier statue.  Vendor booths selling cotton candy, chili dogs, homemade jewelry and tee shirts are set up on all four sides of the closed streets.  An animal adoption booth has erected a low and not very substantial chicken wire fence at one end - it encloses three or four adoptable mixed breed dogs - but no one pays any attention to the emaciated stray hound wandering just down the street by the open door'ed sidewalk cafe.  Musicians are doing sound checks and praying for no technical glitzes, a number of them shout out a welcome to me and I wave.  It's a long way to have come for a sparse crowd but the day is young and perhaps, like in Field of Dreams, people will come.

I take my pictures, visit with my musician friends, stuff myself with chili cheese dogs and at the end of the day head back on the road, driving into the sun and away from the urban blight.

Milford Shack's Muse

Milford Shack's small, two story house sat quietly on the west side of the village square, nearly but not quite surrounded by trees and a low iron fence.  A half dozen sleek and colorful cats prowled the grounds and soft lamplight spilled from each of the downstairs windows.  There was nothing spooky or forbidding or even mildly interesting about the place and Uncle Milly - a travel writer by trade - was remarkable only for the fact that in all his sixty some years and despite a number of successful books and glossy magazine articles about the incredible beauty of all the provinces, he'd never actually set as much as a foot off the island.  That, and of course, the fact that he was a self-proclaimed fortune teller.

He was a small man, almost fragile looking and inclined to be fussy in his appearance and speech.  He favored jackets with elbow patches and muted wool vests worn over pin striped shirts.  You could cut bread by the crease in his trousers, Nana said, and his only concession to comfort seemed to be his casually scuffed loafers.
He was what my grandmother - when in a charitable mood - called "affected" although with what I was never sure.  His exaggerated gestures and accent (brazenly and openly copied from Miss Hilda as everyone knew) got on her nerves and when he grew a pencil-thin mustache and cultivated a pointy little goatee, it was more than she could bear.

I declare, Milly, she said sharply after an afternoon of banana cream pie and tea liberally spiked with whiskey,
I cain't decide iffin you look like an undersized Basil Rathbone or an overgrown Mickey Rooney, but it don't
suit you a'tall.

Uncle Milly smiled,

Leave me my illusions, dear Alice, he said smoothly, the muse suggested them and my public enjoys them.

Uncle Milly's muse, his inspiration and guide as he called her, came only at night and rarely took physical form.

But when she does, he assured anyone who would listen, she is golden haired like the sun and moves with the grace of clouds and moonlight and speaks only in whispers and only to me.

Where does she come from, Uncle Milly, I wanted to know, What's her name?

Her name is Drinelda, he told me with a wink, and she comes from a world just past the moon.  She's full of secrets.

And you're full of what makes the grass grow green, Milford Shack, my grandmother snapped impatiently, don't be fillin' the child's head with your fool nonsense.  She's already got imagination enough for two!

I thought maybe this wasn't the time to tell her that after much coaxing and pleading, Uncle Milly had finally agreed to tell my fortune for my birthday.  It had seemed like a glamorous and grownup idea at the time - who knew but that the muse might even drop by - and I didn't want Nana's cynicism to spoil the plan.  The idea of a fortune teller was no less plausible than a travel writer who didn't travel, I thought and the whole village knew that it was Uncle Milly's daughter who actually visited all the places and took the pictures while Uncle Milly added the words.

Not to mention, Milly, my grandmother was adding, You and your fool muse ain't nothin' but a fraud and you know it.  Fine thing for a grown man to playin' at, I declare, you oughta be ashamed.

When I repeated this conversation to Ruthie - the thought that a fortune teller might be a waste of a hard earned quarter being at the back of my mind - she reminded me that grownups don't know everything like they think they do and what my grandmother didn't know surely wasn't going to hurt her.

Besides, she said reasonably enough, We ain't gon' get caught.  And 'sposin' we see the muse?

We didn't see the muse, of course but Uncle Milly did his best.  He appeared in a celestial purple floor length robe with matching turban, dimmed the lights and dealt the sinister tarot cards with a dramatic flair.   The air in his parlor was faintly smoky and mysterious in a shadowy, catlike way.  Now and again the night breeze would stir the tree branches against the curtained windows making a raspy, eerie sound that sent a chill all the way up my backbone.  When an unseen cat slipped beneath the table and brushed against my ankle I thought for a second I would scream.  Ruthie sat frozen, so frightened she forgot to breathe, her normally tanned and healthy looking skin the color of watered down milk.

The spirits are with us, dear children, Uncle Milly intoned in a voice fit for the grave, and the muse is watching.  Have no fear.

Ruthie and I shared a shiver.

The fortune telling itself was pretty mundane - long and happy lives, handsome men, many children - nothing we would remember for long.  

It's the delicious sense of childhood terror that I remember.  For a few precious moments - muse or no muse - the whole world was haunted and the kind of fear that only children seek out and appreciate was everywhere.
















 

A Walk in the Woods

No one else seemed to find it odd, but watching my new husband stuff his jacket pockets with eight cans of beer for a twenty minute walk in the woods got my attention.  It would take another thirteen years before I fully came to grips with the seriousness of what I'd gotten myself into and managed to crawl out of, but I think it was that moment more than any other that clarified and defined the most self-destructive choice I'd ever made.  Standing at the back door with the autumn leaves all blazing with color just outside the windows, shame took on a new dimension.  Eight cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon - what they called "Big Boys", the 16 ounce cans designed for the serious beer drinker - at barely eleven in the morning.  I could almost feel the steel jaws of pride and stubbornness and denial slamming shut and underneath, where the voice you refuse to listen to pleads and carries on, I knew the trap had been finally and fully sprung.

It would be nice - although delusional - to say I didn't know.  The not so pleasant truth is that I'd known pretty much from the first moment we'd met but with meticulous planning and exquisite attention to detail, I'd not so much willed it away as kept it a carefully guarded secret.  I needed time, I told myself, to change him, repair the damage, fix him.  He was unhappy, I wanted to think, unappreciated and misunderstood.   He drank to escape the misery and sadness.  He was cold and distant because he was lost.  He needed love and patience and rehab.  I gave him protection and a partner in crime and instead of rescuing him, I got sicker and in the end was barely able to save myself.  It makes me wonder how often "love at first sight" is really nothing more than sick and broken calling to sick and broken.

We walked in the woods that late September day until each can of beer was gone - it took surprisingly little time - and by the time we returned, he was sleepy and good natured and unsteady on his feet.  After lunch and a few more six packs, he crawled off to bed while it was still light.

No one else seemed to find that odd either.

Families teach what they know.  Sometimes we only learn by finding new teachers and walking in the woods alone.

Couple Up

Sitting quietly and listening to two dear friends take their vows, I think about being single and all it does and doesn't entail.  I suspect I'm not the only one entertaining such thoughts.

It's been years since I've been to a wedding and my camera sits ready and willing but idle while my friend Mary Catherine buzzes around the room like a cicada, angling, snapping, capturing moments.   I've decided to be a guest this time, to sit back and watch without the shield of my old Nikon.  It's more difficult than you might think and after the meal but before all the traditional festivities, I slip out.  It was a lovely event but I've had enough of the crowd and the chatter.  After the vows are exchanged, the rest is just decoration and icing and without my camera, my shy side surfaces and coaxes me home.  The last thing I hear is a musician friend singing the tale end of a lyric about no more lonely nights or solitary breakfasts.  Thinking about the five cats and two dogs waiting for me, I smile.  What I'd give for a lonely night or a solitary breakfast.

When, at the ripe old age of 46, I found myself alone after being married for my entire adult life, I was initially torn between anxiety and relief.  I consoled myself with one not terribly serious relationship and two garden variety flings before coming to terms with my new lifestyle.  Two decades later, the very thought of a third marriage gives me the chills.  My marriages didn't fail, I sometimes think, I did.  It strikes me that not all of us are meant for married life, that destiny manages to deliver us the lives we're due, not the ones we imagine we should want or have.  Karmic forces work slowly and discreetly.  They give us time to become accustomed to our fates.  And they do not concern themselves with our individual views of fairness.  I'm pretty sure that what goes around actually does come around but it may not be in this lifetime.

Meanwhile there's music and dancing, wedding bouquets to be thrown and commitments to be celebrated.  I feel a twinge of envy as I leave, but just a twinge.

I'm over it by the time I drive away.

Spooks in the Cupboard

Despite how tempting it is, I don't believe in ghosts, at least not the rattling chains and spooks in the cupboard kind.  But reading the story of a friend who wrote about her daddy's suicide, I found myself feeling haunted and a little restless.  That same night I dreamed about the morning I learned my mother had died, a life altering event but apart from writing about it once, something I hadn't given any thought to in over 20 years.

She died early on a Saturday morning - although I had to look up the month and year - and I remember we were packing for a weekend in Bar Harbor when the telephone rang and a solemn voiced, long time family friend gave me the news. 

You'll come to the wake, he said, somewhere between a statement and a question.

No, I said.

Then to the funeral, he said after a pause.

No, I said clearly.

Your dad would like you to be there, he persisted but very low key.

Then he should have called me, I said, hoping for a mix of indifference and casual, suspecting that all I was managing was bitter, Thanks for letting me know.

She was your mother, he said as if it needed pointing out.

My mother died, I said quietly, a very long time ago, and hung up the telephone.

You can spend years regretting a single word or conversation, wishing for a chance to re-learn the proper lines and carry it off with a better result but I never once felt that way about that particular call.  I remember standing there in the kitchen and suddenly being able to stand straight and breathe for what seemed like the first time in years.

Who was on the 'phone?  my husband asked.

Wrong number, I said and shrugged, only slightly surprised at how easily and carelessly the lie had come. There was no point in ruining a long planned for weekend out of town and I might've instinctively known that the not unexpected death of one alcoholic would mean little to another.  I might even have suspected that he would take my lack of remorse as some kind of sick reflection on his current - but, I feared, temporary - sobriety.  On the whole, it was a Pandora's Box not worth opening.  This spook, I decided, could stay in the cupboard a little longer.  I was up to my ears in relief.

 Who knew that decades later someone else's ghost would try and wake one of my own.

 Every life is complicated, every mind a kingdom of unwrapped mysteries ~ Dean Koontz  

  

Frenchy's Debt

Frenchy was nine the first time he saw the ghost.

Being a practical boy from a hard working and down to earth Catholic family, he told no one about the misty figure in the white cape who'd waved to him from the bell tower then floated away like smoke.  Boys who daydreamed during chores were likely to end up making a trip to the woodshed.  Boys who saw things that weren't there were likely not to sit for a week.  So he rubbed his eyes and dug his heels into the old plow horse's sides and kept riding.  He didn't forget her but he kept riding and was careful not to look back.  Two days later, planting tomatoes in the vestry garden just below the bell tower, the village priest - a relatively young man with no history of cardiac problems -  keeled over with a heart attack and was dead before he hit the dirt.  

Don't fidget! Frenchy's mother whispered testily to him during the funeral mass, Show some respect!

He thought about telling her then.  As unlikely as it seemed, he'd begun to wonder if the two events might not be related in some mysterious, catholic way but her face was stern and impatient, careworn and tired.  Life on a salt water farm had taken its toll on her kindness.  Thinking she was burdened enough, he kept silent.

Just a week shy of his eleventh birthday, he saw her again, this time hovering among the pilings of the old breakwater.  He could see straight through her, he realized, like a fine, sheer curtain.  She was vignetted by mist, her cape swirling and her hair floating like something out of a fairy tale.  When he took a hesitant step toward her, she dissolved and drifted away but that night a fierce storm blew through, lightning struck the radar antenna tower and sent it crashing through the roof of the old guard shack, killing the night watchman and starting a fire that burned clear through til morning.  When it was time for the funeral mass, Frenchy hid in the woodshed and pretended not to hear his mother calling.  

Emile! Her voice carried on the crisp morning air, Come at once!

He covered his ears, shut his eyes and stayed put.  He didn't understand why but he felt responsible.  He was afraid to go to mass, afraid that the Angel of Death might follow.

His mother, Marguerite, fell ill not long after he turned thirteen and for several weeks over the course of an uneasy spring, he watched and waited for the vision, sure he would see her one day looking in a window or curled around the chimney.  He didn't expect her at his mother's bedside and when he saw her there, he flew at her in a helpless rage.  She shook her head at him, smiled with great sadness and broke apart.  Her eyes were kind, he thought, but he would not have her in this house.  She vanished like hot breath on a winter day and his mother recovered.

After that, vaguely convinced that he owed her a life, he saw her more and more often.  She might be idly sitting on the edge of the well in the bright morning sunshine or picking wildflowers on Overcove Road.  Once she was wading in the lily pond, her cape gathered up in her delicate hands but leaving no ripples in the water, he noticed.  Once he saw her perched in the overhanging branches of a tree high above the old post office.  He got used to her after a fashion even though a death most always followed a sighting and it worried him fiercely that he'd never told about her.  When he saw her floating alongside the ferry on a warm summer afternoon, he actually tried to chase her off but she just laughed and fell back out of reach.  He watched her ride the whitecaps all the way across, mermaid-like but weightless and insubstantial.

Whatcha lookin' at, boy?  one of the ferrymen wanted to know but he just shrugged.   The longer he kept his secret, the easier it became.  But just a day or so later, the curious ferryman coughed up one blood clot while another went directly to his brain.  He survived, but his days of ferrying were over and a few short months later while sitting glassy-eyed in the front porch rocker, his heart gave a sigh and a shudder and stopped. By then, Frenchy had come to understand that he wasn't a cause so much as a witness and he sat quietly at the funeral, no fidgeting.  He'd learned to be respectful of things he didn't comprehend, learned to be still and silent in the presence of death.

When he finally screwed up the courage to talk to Father John's replacement - after he was comfortably and conventionally married with children of his own and a reputation for being rock steady - he approached the priest and told him about the ghost.   Father Andrew listened, smoking his pipe and rocking thoughtfully, now and then giving him an encouraging smile but offering little except the mysteries of God and the essential nature of faith.  When Frenchy asked if he believed in ghosts, the young priest sighed.

Let's say, Emile, he said finally, that I don't disbelieve.  Miracles require an open mind.

But why me, Father?  Frenchy persisted.

Who can tell, Emile, the priest replied, We are all chosen to witness in our own way.  If God chose to reveal His plans, there would be no need of faith, my son.  We aren't meant to understand.

If you say so, Father, Frenchy said without much conviction.

He'd been hoping for a more definitive answer but settled for being believed.  He trudged homeward, deciding at the last moment to stop in and see Marguerite, now in her 90's with her health beginning to fail.  Her roses needed rain, he thought as he walked up the path, and the grass needed a good cutting.  Distracted and making a mental list for the weekend, he didn't see the ghost until he knocked on Marguerite's door and by then her work was done and she was slipping through the closed window.  He caught only a glimpse of her white cape as it melted through the glass and faded into the late afternoon air.  There would be no fight this time, he sensed, he was too late and after he'd made all the necessary calls and watched as Marguerite was carried away, he drew all the curtains, shut up the house, and started home again.  He wondered, in a distant and abstract sort of way, if now his debt was paid.

Don't fidget! he found himself whispering sharply to his six year old a few days later at the graveside.  It was a gray-ish day with rainclouds moving ever nearer and a gentle mist falling over the mourners.

But Daddy, the little boy whispered back, She doesn't have an umbrella and she's getting wet.

Who? Frenchy asked more impatiently than he'd liked.

The lady in the bell tower, the child persisted, The one who can fly.  The one I saw at Nana's.

Startled, he looked upward but there was only gray sky, low clouds, light rain.  A shaft of weak sunlight shone on the old tower and it stood out against the threatening weather like a beacon, almost glowing against the darkening sky.  Though he saw no sign of the ghost, Frenchy felt a chill as he picked up his little boy and heard the first shovelfuls of dirt hit the wooden coffin.

She doesn't mind the rain, he told the boy quietly.

She lives on the other side of the rainbow, the six year old said confidently, I think she's an angel.

Frenchy hugged the child and nodded.  I think so too, he said and finally felt a little more at peace.

Perhaps some debts aren't as much paid as they're at least partially forgiven, passed on to younger, stronger shoulders with no fear of ghosts.  Perhaps some debts are gifts in disguise, meant for children and those who believe in angels.

Those who don't believe in magic will never find it ~ Roald Dahl

Old School

I admit it.  I'm old school.

I miss film cameras and proof sheets and grease pencils.  I miss manners and punctuality and customer service.
I miss civility and nickle bus rides and integrity.  I miss common sense and proper grammar, letter writing and math pads, carrying a dime for a pay phone in an emergency, trusting the police.  I miss books and honesty in politics.  I miss the ethics of earning and hard work.  I'm not sorry I'll miss the future of what we've turned into and what we'll eventually make of the world.

The body in the park - a young woman, the news reported but mercifully didn't identify - was found early on a Thursday morning.  Sometime the night before, so the police thought, she had hung herself on the swing set, not an uncommon tragedy but in this case a fairly public one.  The neighborhood was shocked and stunned, her family devastated.  No one comprehends such things, how the world can turn so hard and cruel that there's no way out, how you can be victimized and overwhelmed by depression and fear and illness and isolation.  I hope she's found peace and reason on the other side.  If there is another side.  I can't help but wonder if she didn't find the world as I so often do - a sad and sorry excuse for a civilization - a place only good for leaving.

Most of us shake such feelings off and keep going, one foot in front of the other, one day at a time.  We have children or animals or friends depending on us.  We keep hope alive somehow and fight off the hard corners of despair with bright smiles and stubbornness.  We don't like being beaten at the game but we like giving up even less.  Parents should not have to bury their children, it's an offense, an upside down and twisted version of how things are supposed to be.

So we muddle on, no longer hoping for fairness or rewards, not even trying to understand how we got here or what here actually is.  It takes all we have to do the best we can and when we come up short, there's a swing set somewhere.

I'm old school.  I miss decency and kindness and a world where violence wasn't an answer and suicide wasn't a solution.

To the unidentified young woman in the park, rest in peace.

And Then There Was Silence

My  mother's friend Claire - a tall, elegant looking and statuesque redhead in her very late forties with upswept hair wound tightly and held in place by an ivory colored comb - comes home from her six week Mediterranean cruise with startling news - she has met a man, she tells us almost shyly, and she's to be married.  My mother and grandmother look at her slack jawed and speechless, as if she has suddenly taken leave of her senses and announced her plans to leave for the moon on the next shuttle.  My daddy smiles hugely and kisses her cheek.

Claire was the only friend of both my mother and grandmother who was self supporting and still stubbornly single. She worked as a legal secretary at a downtown law firm and lived in an upscale terraced apartment on Beacon Street with a glorious view of Boston Harbor.  She drove a perky little two seater sports car and always dressed to the nines - she believed in seamed stockings, high heels and hairdressers - and got her make up at department not drug stores.  She was what my mother sneeringly referred to as one of those career women, making it sound like a communicable disease and clearly undesirable. 

It goes against nature for a woman not to marry, she liked to say with a smug smile, When her looks go, she'll be just another lonely old maid.

Maybe her looks won't go, my grandmother suggested wickedly, She looks better now than you did at eighteen.

Don't be a bitch, Mother, my mother would snarl.

Your mother is so jealous her eyes cross at the thought of a woman making it on her own, Nana told me coldly,
Claire is everything she wanted to be and couldn't.

Claire heard none of this, of course.  Back stabbing was an art in my family, gossip a means to an end, but to get caught at it was unthinkable.  My maternal relations were careful to keep these conversations mostly private.

So, my daddy said with a sideways warning glance at his wife and mother-in-law and a wink in my general direction, Tell us all about it, Claire.

Well, Claire began, a little nervously, I thought, It started as a shipboard romance.......

It was a magic tale of sunsets and pink champagne and candlelit dinners for two with dancing afterwards, a variation of Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr in "An Affair To Remember" except without the tragedy.  And on their last night at sea, the handsome first officer had proposed and the pretty redhead had said yes.  

Just like that? my mother wanted to know.

Just like that, Claire nodded.

Sounds too good to be true, Nana said with more than a trace of doubt, Sounds like there ought to be a catch.

That was when the doorbell rang and while we didn't know it, "An Affair to Remember" was about to change to "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner".

A tall and distinguished looking black man in an immaculate white dress uniform was at the door.  He nodded to me, smiled and with a definite island lilt, announced that he had come to collect Miss Claire for the evening.  His coffee with cream skin shone under the porch light and the brass buttons on his uniform gleamed.
He was holding a single red rose and carrying a heartful of expectations.

Now that you mention it, I heard Claire saying serenely, there is one small thing......

And then there was silence.

Moon Children

I had - didn't we all? - a brief fling with Jack Kerouac in college, imagining life on the road as a glorious and high adventure, the ultimate freedom ride.  Romance lay glittering just around the next corner on The Road, romance and independence and emancipation from the ordinary and the dull.  I would find kindred souls and join them.  I would abdicate family and routines and the rat race.  I would fly on wings of my own making and be free. 

Lying awake at almost four in the morning, I listen to a far off train whistle and imagine shucking it all and hopping a slow moving freight.  It's been a long time since I was a free spirit and there are those sleepless times when unattached and possession-less sounds like a good thing.  Florida, I think to myself, I'd go to Florida and sleep on a beach.  Pick oranges and go barefoot.  It's almost enough to put me back asleep but it's interrupted by a staccato trill from the kitten who notices I'm awake and comes from nowhere to make her presence known.  Sharp little claws sink into my shoulder and the barefoot beach and orange grove scene fades abruptly.  Real life - all trilling and energetic eight pounds of it - intervenes with a vengeance.  I decide it's better to get up and write than lie here and piss and moan about my sleep deprivation so I crawl out of bed and let the dogs out.  That's when I notice the moon, high and hazy in the sky with transparent veils of clouds like cobwebs moving across it swiftly.  The edges lighten and darken, darken and lighten and for a second or two I feel almost hypnotized watching it.  It was only later that I realized I was watching the process of a lunar eclipse, what many call a Blood Moon. 

“The moon is a loyal companion.
It never leaves. It’s always there, watching, steadfast, knowing us in our light and dark moments, changing forever just as we do. Every day it’s a different version of itself. Sometimes weak and wan, sometimes strong and full of light. The moon understands what it means to be human.
Uncertain. Alone. Cratered by imperfections.”

Tahereh Mafi

Lilac, Llewellyn & The Gale of '53

Llewellyn lived alone in a small, snug, well built cabin in the hills above Bay St. Mary.  On a clear night, you could see the lantern light glowing from the windows and, if you listened closely enough, hear dulcimer music from the tiny front porch.  He had no near neighbors and kept only a dappled old cur dog - unaccountably he called him Lilac - for company.  In the summer, he came to the village to sell apples and sweet corn, maybe even make a yearly stop at Alton's barber shop.  Otherwise, he minded his business and stayed to himself.  He was a rough-looking old man in homespun clothes, not unfriendly exactly, but hardly congenial or outgoing. He might nod if you passed him, Lilac might raise his shaggy old head from the back of the buckboard and give you a passing glance - more like a sneer, the old timers liked to say - but neither was much noticed.  In the winter, they hardly came at all and the village, hunkered down and resignedly waiting out the snow and ice, rarely gave them a thought.

The gale of '53 changed that.  The storm was especially hard on Bay St. Mary, blowing down Llewellyn's fences and uprooting trees, eventually violent enough to tear the roof off his barn.    It was early spring and with no shelter for his stock, the old man packed up his chickens and pigs, hitched the oxen to the wagon, and made the journey into the village over the still icy dirt roads and through the snow drifts, all the way to McIntyre's.

Done lost the barn, Missus, he told Mrs. McIntyre hesitantly, Be needin' someone to take in the animals for a spell.

A good hearted woman, Mrs, McIntyre nodded and made some calls.  By noon, every chicken and pig and even the oxen had been farmed out.  Llewellyn carefully recorded each and every one and where they went in a small leather bound notebook.

I'll be payin' for their care come June, he told everyone, Ain't lookin' for no charity.

Ain't nobody lookin' to give none, Sparrow, who had been warming his hands at the pot bellied stove, assured him shortly, 'Ceptin' you might be needin' a ride back.

Reckon we kin walk, Llewellyn said roughly.

Yep, reckon you could, Sparrow nodded, but it's a long road for Lilac.  And it's colder'n a witches tit so git your mangy ol' dog and you raggedy ol' ass into the pick up.  I'm drivin' you and that's all I'm sayin' 'bout it.

The stand off might've continued but for Lilac, who at hearing his name, had gotten to his feet and barked sharply.  Llewellyn shrugged and gave in.  He pulled his bearskin coat a little tighter, settled his sweat stained hat on his head, stamped his muddy work boots.

Reckon I got all day then?  he demanded and trudged toward the door, Lilac at his heels.  Sparrow laughed, tipped his hat to Mrs. McIntyre and followed.

Well, Nana said with a sigh and a smile when I told her about it, Ain't that somethin'.  Those two old coots ain't had a word for each other in forty years.

Not since Lilac run off with that preacher-man, Aunt Pearl agreed aimiably.

Scandalous!  Aunt Vi declared, I heard tell he died a year or so back.  Kinda though Lilac might come home after that.

Not likely, Pearl shook her head, Why, that woman was a train wreck to every man that crossed her path!

They was might young then, my grandmother said thoughtfully, Mebbe it ain't for us to judge.

All's I know, Miss Clara looked up briefly from her newspaper to scan the card table and frown at Aunt Vi, All's I know is that a woman ain't got much choice 'cept to follow her heart and .... VIOLA!  WE BEEN PLAYING BRIDGE ALL YOUR NATURAL LIFE AND YOU STILL AIN'T CAUGHT ON!  DON'T PLAY THAT GODFORSAKEN ACE WHEN A JACK WILL DO!

And what, Clara?  Aunt Pearl smirked.

And that's what she done, Clara said snappishly, still glaring at her helpless partner across the table. Aunt Vi trembled and her eyes welled up.  Clara muttered an apology and Nana patted Vi's shoulder gently while  Aunt Pearl took another trick and looked serene.

The bridge game ended and it wasn't until the women were settled on the sun porch with pound cake and martinis that the story of Lilac and Llewellyn emerged.

They was childhood sweethearts, Nana began, lived next door to each other up by where the ol' Crocker place used to be.  

Practically joined at the hip, Pearl added.

Never did see one without the other, Vi agreed, Always planned on gettin' hitched.

Leastways 'til Lilac and Sparrow got stranded in the hurricane, Clara said and there was an edge of bitterness in her voice, Ended up spendin' all night in the root cellar while Llewellyn was still on the mainland.

Ayuh, Pearl nodded, Lilac called off the weddin' the very next day, like to broke her mama's heart.

Sure broke Llewellyn's, Nana said mildly, He was mighty forgivin' of her but he never had another word for Sparrow.

Then, Aunt Vi said tentatively, the new preacher-man come and......

And all hell done broke loose, Clara interrupted, end of summer come and Lilac and the preacher-man run off together.  Sparrow went after'em, acourse, but he never did catch'em.  

And Llewellyn and Sparrow ain't never spoke ever since, my grandmother wound up.

Until now, I said.

Until now, the women agreed.

And Lilac?  I asked.

Don't rightly think anybody knows, Clara said with a frown, Ain't heard her name in a coon's age 'ceptin' for Llewellyn namin' every dog he's ever had after her.  Damn foolishness, if you ask me.

Later that spring, the village united - as tiny villages do everywhere - and Llewellyn's barn got a new roof.  He collected his stock and paid for their care just as he'd promised and sometimes Sparrow accompanied him, sharing the seat of the old buckboard with Lilac the dog sitting proudly between them.  It wasn't a pure reconciliation and to anyone who didn't know them, you'd wouldn't have thought them friends.  But it was a place to start - forty years notwithstanding - it was a place to start and now and again, that's all any of us really need.

Sometimes life pushes us in directions we ought to have found for ourselves ~ 
Bob Hoskins, Maid in Manhattan





  

A Passing Storm

I wake to wave of vicious thunderstorms.  Lightning cracks like tree branches and for several minutes the house is under a wild assault of hail - it slams into the windows and echoes like fireworks - the small brown dog barely seems to notice but the little dachshund turns unexpectedly gun shy - his eyes widen and he crawls into my lap and trembles.  I stroke him, speak softly in my best reassuring voice, hold him tightly, but it isn't enough.  He's never minded storms before, turning just a little restless when the thunder is close, but the hail is a new and frightening thing and it breaks my heart to see him so afraid.  My second thoughts are for the outside cats and the half grown kitten and I say a small prayer that they've found some sort of shelter from the storm.  The rain beats hard and cold, a dismal and heartless thing with no mercy and even though it's nearly eight in the morning, it's still pitch black outside.  Just when I think the worst is over, a second round of hail begins slamming into the windows and pelting the roof.  

It's just noise, I tell the little dachshund, it can't hurt you.  

The lights start to flicker then and keeping him tucked under one arm, I scurry to light a half dozen candles, just in case.  After several more minutes, one storm center passes but another is right at its heels.  I can hear water cascading down the gutters, the walls vibrate with the force of the thunder.  Nature reminding us of our insignificance, my daddy used to say.

Slowly, slowly, slowly, the sky begins to lighten and the thunder and lightning begin to ease.  The rain is still coming down like a monster but the noise fades and the little dachshund begins to breathe more evenly.  I set him on the floor gently and after a few seconds he lies down on his side and falls asleep.

It's almost over, I tell him quietly, no harm done.

By nine, the rain is barely noticeable and I can hear birds singing in the azaleas and a distant train whistle. Both dogs are peacefully asleep on the bed and the cats have come out from hiding.

You'd never know the world had almost come to an end.

Better A Solitary Life

The newest cat to find her way here is a half grown, at least partly calico little girl with a sweet, heart shaped face.  When I pull into the driveway, she skitters off the front steps, careens through the azaleas, and like a small, heat seeking missile, dives through the lattice work to the shelter of under the house.  I suspect she's more stray than feral and despair at the thought of more kittens in the spring.  Of all the houses on this dead end block, mine seems to be the most popular, a veritable halfway house for stray felines who would rather live a solitary life than a compromised one.  I know it's done all the time, but if I live to be a hundred and fifty I will never understand how people can abandon animals.

I don't know how many cats now call under the house home, in truth, I try not to think about it.  The Cat Who Lived in the Garage still comes by now and then, just as skittish and unapproachable as she ever was.  There are one or two tabbies that wander the neighborhood and of course, sometimes the enormous and bad tempered Siamese strolls by, picks a fight, and moves on.  Now and again I see one with a notched ear, the local spay neuter clinic's way of marking the Trap/Neuter/Return cats - a noble effort but for the fact that it actually accomplishes so little - the lives of the animals are only marginally improved but at at least it puts an end to their breeding.  Meanwhile, feral cat colonies seem to be blossoming all over the city.  There's no end in sight.

We may call it independence or a retreat from a mad world, but I imagine that we all have a little stray cat in us, a tiny bit of spirit that wants no ties and who in the words of Tennessee Williams, has always depended on the kindness of strangers for it's uncertain life.  This little girl is clean and sleek, with no visible signs of neglect or injury  and a street wise wariness of humans.  She appears cared for and healthy and while so far I've refused to feed her, my neighbors are not so heartless, little dishes of dogfood appear in the driveway on a regular basis.  She licks them clean and then retreats, slipping under the latticework and disappearing.  It's not the easy life I suspect she knew at one time but she does the best she can.

When the rain comes, falling fiercely and punctuated with thunder so close and loud it shakes the walls, I think of her and hope she's managed to find a warm and dry place under the house. 

 I don't suppose a dish of dry food every now and again would hurt.

Listening Rooms

We need more listening rooms.

After 35 years of bars and restaurants - five hours a night, seven nights a week - my friend Jack stepped away in favor of listening rooms.  The money was nowhere as good but the air was clear and people came to hear his music rather than drink and smoke and chatter.  It was a risky move but at 70, he looks back and smiles.  I think there may be an analogy of some kind here.

We spend our lives in bars and restaurants, working and learning and worrying and chasing the paycheck.  We often don't make much progress, arriving at an end point which is suspiciously like the beginning only with less time.  We call it a journey not a destination and we look back and can't help but wonder where it all went - the money, the time, the youth - the friends and lovers we met and discarded, the good times we miss and the bad ones we try not to remember.  Maybe if we'd had less smoke and noise and less clutter, we'd have fewer regrets.

People sit quietly in listening rooms.  They tend not to cough and shift in their seats and whisper and get antsy for things to move along or end.  They're not interested in picking up the pace just to get nowhere in a hurry.  I've seen them close their eyes and almost drift off in music.  They're here for the story, for the experience, for what will be a sweet memory.

You can always take the easy way 
The road that many choose 
You can always wander in the haze 
Never mind what you would lose 
You can always follow the whims of this world 
But what will it mean in the hereafter? 

Jack Williams